The invention relates to telecommunications terminal enclosures. More specifically, the invention relates to aerial enclosures for telecommunications terminal blocks.
In many parts of the world, telephone cables are strung above ground from a central office on to the customers. At various points along the telephone cable, connections to customers' homes are made by splicing into the cable with a drop wire. The drop wire connections are made at an aerial terminal block which is spliced into the main cable. Telephone repairmen, and/or installers gain access to the terminals by climbing the telephone poles. When in the air, the repairman often times does not have a great deal of room within which to work and must use at least one hand to hold a fixed position safely above the ground. Conventional aerial terminal boxes generally open outward and downward or outward and upward. The swinging action of the doors requires the installer to back away from the terminal upon opening and closing. This often causes the installer to be out of balance.
A solution to this problem is taught in U.S. Pat. application No. 07/130,348 filed Dec. 8, 1987 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,908,482 issued Mar. 13, 1990 which is completely incorporated herein by reference for all purposes. The enclosure utilize concentric cylinders which rotate about the central axis of the interior cylinder. Although this configuration solves all the "backing away" problems, it provides limited access to the terminal. The enclosure also does not permit maximum space efficiency. Thus, it would be highly desirable to have a terminal housing which provides the desirable features of a cylindrical enclosure while permitting greater access to the terminal and more useable space.